


The Tooka Cat

by QueenOfCarrotFlowers



Series: Carrot's Romance Fics [22]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn, bonding over a kitty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 08:16:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20485742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers
Summary: When he was nine, Finn found a kitty trapped in the gutter and the new kid on the street helped him get it out. They only speak a few times over the years, and it isn't until several years later that they finally make a real connection.A modern childhood not-quite-friends to almost-lovers AU





	The Tooka Cat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jessa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/gifts).

> Jessa made my August by building a beautiful modern Finnlo AU over the month, so I wanted to give her something in return. This is a fic I've had in my prompts list for months and months, and I'm so glad to finally be able to write it and give it to someone to gives so much. Thank you, Jessa!
> 
> This is totally unbeta'd! All mistakes are mine!

"What's wrong?"

Finn looked up at the bigger kid who was standing over where he crouched down in the gutter. The buses dropped the smaller kids off one one end of the street, and a different bus dropped the bigger kids off at the other end of the street, so it wasn't unusual to cross paths with a bigger kid on your way home from the bus stop. But Finn hadn't seen this kid before, although he guessed that this big kid lived in the house three doors from him, on the other side. The Damerons had moved out months before, into a larger house on the other side of town, so the house had been empty but there had been a moving truck out front on Saturday. Finn was excited; all the kids on the street were older than him, so he'd played conspicuously in the front yard all that day and as much of Sunday as his mom would allow, but he hadn't seen any kids in all that time. Still, there's not many other places this boy could come from.

The kid was tall, probably in Middle School and maybe even in High School. He was standing right in front of the sun so Finn couldn't see him very well, but he could tell he was tall and that his hair was dark. His voice was pretty deep, too, but unpracticed, like he was still getting used to it. It was kind, though, and sounded honestly concerned, and that made Finn feel better about being caught out kneeling in the gutter and crying.

"Are you okay?" The bigger kid tried again, and when he spoke again his voice was harder. "Did somebody hurt you?"

"No!" Finn cried at that, afraid he'd given this kid the wrong idea. Maybe that would be better, though; his actual reason for crouching in the gutter was honestly a little embarrassing. But he wasn't going to _lie_.

"No," he said again, more calmly. "I'm not hurt, I'm just upset."

The bigger kid kneeled down next to him, and from this angle Finn could see him a lot better. He did have dark hair, and a very pale face that was dotted with moles. There was one on the right side of his face, next to his nose, that caught Finn's attention in particular. He wanted to poke it, but he wouldn't, because that would be rude. His eyes were a light shade of brown, much lighter than Finn's own dark brown eyes, and Finn wondered briefly if this boy saw colors the same way that he did. Did words sound the same to him? 

Finn thought he wondered about too much weird stuff.

There was a sound from the drain, the same sound that had caught Finn's attention in the first place, had made him cry, and he could tell that the other boy heard it too by the way his spine straightened and his mouth and eyes opened wide.

"Is that a cat?"

Finn nodded, miserable. "I think it's a kitten. I think it fell in and it can't get out, and if it rains tonight it'll..."

"We gotta get it out," the other kid interrupted before Finn could finish his thought, for which he was very grateful. "Look, there's a manhole cover here," he continued, standing up and gesturing at the sidewalk just over the long opening between the edge of the sidewalk and the street that gaped into darkness. "If we can get the cover off, I can reach down and get the cat."

Finn thought that was a great idea - much more practical than singing into the drain, trying to keep the kitty calm, which is what he'd been doing - so the two of them tried to grip their fingers around the edge of the cover and lift it up. It was too heavy, or they were too weak, or their fingers were all wrong, because they couldn't even get it to shift. But then Finn wondered out loud if they might be able to use a lever to pry it up (he'd been reading _The Way Things Work_ and there were lots of neat ideas about building stuff that he'd been wanting to try out), so the bigger boy ran down the street - straight to the house three doors down from his own, he'd been right about that - and he came back a few minutes later without his backpack but with a big metal bar in his hand.

"Crowbar," he explained, leaning over and pushing one end of the bar into the slot they'd been using to try to pick the cover up. "My dad has a bunch of them."

Together they pressed down on the long end of the bar, and when it was a few inches up the bigger boy abandoned Finn - encouraging him to _push down on it as hard as you can, I don't want to break my fingers!_ \- and lifted it up the rest of the way, finally throwing it over and exposing the interior of the drain below.

And there was the kitten. Finn didn't know how to tell the age of a cat, but this one was tiny, orange with white splotches over its back and, he noticed when Ben reached his long arm down and came back up with the kitten, little white socks on the ends of each of its scrawny legs.

"Socks," Finn said.

"You're gonna call it socks?" The boy asked as he handed the kitten to Finn, gently placing it in his awaiting hands. The kitten shook and mewled; it was warm and soft against his palms. 

"I meant it looks like it's wearing socks. I don't think I want to call it socks. What's a good name for a kitty?"

The older boy smiled and reached out a long finger to stroke the kitten between the eyes. It pressed against him and purred, and that made him smile wider.

"How about Tooka?" he suggested, flicking his strange light-brown eyes up to meet Finn's. 

"Tooka?"

"Yeah, you know, the story of the Tooka Cat?" The bigger boy stood up and used his feet to start pushing the manhole cover back toward the hole. 

"I don't know it. What is the Tooka Cat?"

"A boy has a stuffed cat, called Tooka Cat. He loses it and has to search his whole house before he can find it." As he talked the boy pushed the cover, and by the time he was done explaining the story the manhole cover was more or less where it belonged. The boy was pink with exertion, or maybe he was blushing, Finn couldn't quite tell. "It's a book for little kids, it's not very interesting."

"Well _I_ think it sounds interesting," Finn said, standing back up and trying to figure out how he was going to explain the kitten to his mom. 

"Yeah well, you're kind of a little kid." 

Finn rankled at that, and stood up straight, although he was still several inches shorter than the other boy.

"I'm _nine_, I'm not little."

"Yeah, well I'm thirteen, so you're little to me." He paused, seeming to sense Finn's ire. "There's nothing wrong with being little," he said more softly, taking a step away and then waiting for Finn to follow, which he did. "When you're little, people don't expect so much from you."

The bigger boy sounded sad, and Finn didn't even wonder why because he was already entranced by the kitten. So he said _thank you_ again, and goodbye, and ran to his own house hoping he could convince his mom to let him keep the kitten. It wasn't until much later in the evening - after several lectures on _responsibility_ and accompanying his dad to the local pet store - that Finn realized that he still didn't know the bigger boy's name.

* * *

The bigger boy was named _Ben_, Finn learned later that week when his mother went over to their house to welcome them to the neighborhood and came home with gossip. She didn't call it gossip, of course, she called it _news_, and it wasn't for Finn's ears although he still heard it. Ben lived with his mom, and his parents were separated but not divorced, and his dad wasn't around much. Finn's mom had also met an uncle - Ben's uncle, he thought, although maybe it was Ben's mom's uncle, Finn couldn't hear too well from where he was crouched in the hallway outside the kitchen where his parents were talking in low voices. Tooka was with him, and he had to keep petting her to keep her from mewing and giving them away.

Finn saw Ben around, but they didn't really talk again after that. Ben quickly got to be friends with the other bigger kids on the block, Phasma and Armitage Hux and even Poe Dameron; he'd moved across town but still came over a lot, his dad would drive him and would drop him outside of Ben's house and the others would go over and Finn would play by himself in his front yard, three doors down. Over the years Finn grew, bought larger clothes, got a larger bike, moved from grade to grade, and he watched Ben do the same, grow from an awkward preteen to a young man. Finn was still pretty little, in comparison, but his dad kept telling him he'd grow to be a man eventually, he just had to wait. So he waited.

He saw Ben, but he never talked to Ben; they barely acknowledged each other's existence when they saw each other in the neighborhood, Finn with his bike and Ben with his older friends. The next time they spoke was years later - it was Finn's first year of High School, and he'd been tasked with walking some important papers from Mr Canady's classroom to the main office. Finn was always being tasked with these sorts of things. Not because he was especially good at it - it didn't take a great amount of talent to walk envelopes down three hallways without tripping - but because he always finished classwork early so he had time to spare.

He walked into the office and straight to the counter to hand off the papers, so it wasn't until he turned around that he saw Ben sitting in a chair, between a tall potted plant and the corner. He wasn't really sitting, though, he was sprawled in it, long legs spread wide and flung out in front of him, torso curled in on itself even as his head lolled back, neck resting on the back of the chair. He was wearing all black - he always wore black, and had for a while - and his dark hair had grown past his shoulders. The knuckles on his right hand were bloody, and as Finn watched, Ben lifted up his head and gazed at him. His own face was untouched - if he'd been in a fight, he'd certainly come out on top - but he was still scowling. As he looked at Finn, however, his eyes seemed to clear, and his scowl softened, just a bit.

"Hey, kid," he murmured. "How's your Tooka?"

"Ah," Finn replied, surprised at the topic of conversation. "She's good."

The corner of Ben's mouth ticked up. "A girl, huh. Good kitty."

Finn watched Ben's mouth. He hadn't really noticed his mouth before, but he noticed it now. His lips were pink and they looked soft, and his mouth was wide. He didn't understand why looking at Ben's mouth made him feel strange, but he knew that it did. The mole he'd noticed the first time they met, the large one next to his nose, he noticed that too, only this time he didn't want to poke it. He still wanted to touch it, but _poking_ seemed more violent than what he wanted to do to it.

"You okay, Finn?" 

Ben asked the question, and Finn's eyes snapped up to meet his own. He'd been staring, and Ben had caught him, and also he called him _Finn_ which he'd never done before, called him his name to his face. For some reason this combination of facts made Finn feel very flustered, and hot, and he nodded as Ben slowly straightened himself and opened his mouth to say something else the secretary called over: "Ben Solo, Principal Snoke is ready to see you now."

Whatever Ben might have been preparing to say was lost. His mouth snapped shut and Finn was certain a brief cloud of fear crossed his face before his expression hardened again into the scowl he'd been wearing when Finn first saw him, slouched in the corner. Ben stood up quickly and made his way to where the secretary was holding up the hinged counter, opening the way to the main office and the Principal's office beyond. Finn watched him go, shuffling across the floor with his shoulders stooped, as though trying to make himself appear smaller. Then the secretary glanced back at Finn, and he hurried out of the office so he could make it back to Geometry before the bell.

* * *

The next year Ben was sent to a boarding school out of state, and aside from occasional glances when he'd come home for holidays, Finn didn't see him again until he was home from his second year of college. He was attending the state university, just a couple of hours on the highway, and he'd come home for a long weekend just because he missed Tooka. He'd had to leave her at home, as long as he was living in the dorms, and it was fine but he did miss having her snuggled up next to his head when he woke up, so he'd scheduled his classes so that every month he could take a four-day weekend without missing anything important. 

It was March, still early in Spring, and the evening was chilly but Finn was tired of being inside so he decided to take a walk, just as the sun was going down. There was a park at his end of the street, not a playground but a real park, with grass and trees and paths with light posts that would shine at night to light the way. That's where Finn went, into the park, and he'd only been walking for a few minutes when he smelled the acrid, sour scent of cigarette smoke, and as he followed the path around a bush, there was Ben Solo, sitting on a bench in the grass and smoking a cigarette.

He looked terrible, like he hadn't slept for a week. His hair was shorter than it had been in the past, but was unwashed, and he was thin. His black t-shirt hung on his frame, and when he finally realized that someone was standing in front of him - it took him a few seconds - he looked up, and Finn could see dark bags under his eyes. His face was so pale, almost yellow. His eyes were dim and slightly bloodshot. But they were still that beautiful honey brown, and his mouth was still plush, and the mole next to his nose was as prominent as ever.

Finn was older now, and Finn had words to describe the things that he'd like to do with Ben. But not like this.

It took Ben a moment to focus, but when he did he blessed Finn with a real smile. "Hey, kid, it's been a while. How are you?"

"I'm good," Finn replied, taking a seat next to him but leaving a few inches between them. From that close he could smell Ben better; body odor and whiskey. He'd been drinking, and he needed a bath. "How are you?"

"Ah, you know, not bad." He leaned back on the bench and held in a burp. "'Scuse me. You know, 's fine. How's that Tooka cat?"

Finn smiled, amused that Ben even remembered it.

"She's good, you know. I don't see her much because I'm at college and I can't have her at the dorms, so I come home to see her when I can."

Ben was frowning, his eyebrows drawn together. "Why not in the dorms? No cats in the dorms? That sucks."

"Yeah, it does. Hey, what are you doing in the park?"

Ben looked around, as though confirming to himself that he was, indeed, in the park and not somewhere else. Then he looked at his hand, at the cigarette burning down almost to the filter in his right hand, and he pointed to it with his left. "Smoke, came for a smoke. Want one?"

"Ah, no thank you," Finn replied as Ben patted the pockets of his coat and fished out a battered pack of American Spirits. Once they were out he looked at the pack, shrugged, and then tucked it back from wherever he'd pulled it from.

They sat in silence for a minute or two while Ben breathed heavily in an alcohol-induced stupor and Finn tried to decide the best way to get him home, where he could sober up.

"Hey, uh," Ben said, breaking the silence. "D'you ever think about your dad?"

Finn recalled that Ben's parents were separated when he moved in three doors down, all those years before, and tried to remember if he'd ever seen him, or heard anything else about him since.

"I mean, sure," he answered slowly. "Do you?"

Ben sighed, and then he sighed again, and by the time he sighed a third time, Finn glanced over to see tears streaming down Ben's face, which was scrunched up like a toddler's.

"Hey, man," Finn murmured, scooting closer and putting an arm around his shoulders. "Come on, hey." He wasn't going to tell him not to cry, because he hated it when other people told him not to cry - especially other men, especially his dad - so he sat there and let Ben make his chest wet with tears, and mumbled whatever he could mumble that didn't sound accusatory or like he was trying to get him to stop.

Eventually he did stop, of his own accord, and he wiped his eyes against Finn's damp chest before sitting up and clearing his throat.

"Sorry about, uh... yeah, I don't like thinking about my dad."

Finn nodded, and rubbed his palm against Ben's back. "Yeah, I get it. Come on, let me walk you home, you need to sober up."

Ben allowed him to pull him upright, and he interlaced his fingers with Finn's and they walked together back up the path, across the road, and onto the sidewalk. Ben was unsteady but the cry seemed to have sobered him up a little bit already. When they reached Ben's house, they both stopped. Ben kept hold of Finn's hand, and looked down at the sidewalk, his hair hanging in his face.

"Hey, my, uh, mom's not home," he said quietly, so quietly that Finn had to lean closer to hear him. "If you wanted to, uh, come inside?"

Ben's expression was hopeful, and Finn was flattered - he was so, so flattered - and if Ben hadn't been drunk, and if he'd smelled better, and if he hadn't been such an obvious mess, Finn might have said yes. But all these things were true, and although Finn liked Ben, had liked him for as long as he'd known him, he didn't want him like this. 

"I will come inside," Finn answered, "and I will make you drink water, and take some painkillers and a vitamin B supplement if you have it, and I will tuck you into bed and I will even read you a book if you'd like. And then I will go home, and tomorrow morning you promise me that you will take a shower, or a bath, and wash your hair."

Ben's hopeful expression faded a bit while Finn talked - it clearly wasn't what he was aiming for - but by the end of the speech he was smiling. Tired, but a real smile nevertheless.

"Yeah, okay."

So that's what they did. Ben drank his water dutifully - three whole glasses, which Finn gave him from the tap in the kitchen, while Ben held him around his waist and nuzzled his neck. It made Finn shiver but it seemed innocent enough, so he didn't push Ben away. Ben swallowed the ibuprofen and the vitamin with his last glass of water, and then Finn walked him upstairs and helped him pull out a pair of clean flannel pajamas, which he changed into while Finn waited out in the hallway. As Ben crawled under the blankets and settled himself, he asked Finn to read _Tooka Cat_, and of course Finn did it. Ben was asleep before the little boy in the story found the cat, but Finn finished it anyway. When he was done he set the book down, turned off the lamp, and kissed Ben on his forehead. He figured the man wouldn't mind.

Then he went home and slept with his own Tooka, and he didn't seen Ben again for a while.

* * *

It was the afternoon, and Finn was tired, and he just needed a little caffeine to get him through the rest of the day. So at 3pm he headed to the coffeeshop across the street from his office - well, a shared office, where all the programmers sat together, but still, _an office_, a real job - just to get a cup of coffee. He'd ordered his usual afternoon drink, medium brew with a shot of vanilla and a shot of espresso - and was waiting for it to be delivered at the end of the counter when there was a tap on his back and a familiar voice said, "Hey, Finn."

Finn turned around and found himself face-to-face with Ben Solo. In the split-second he had in which to make a decision, he'd decided to be cool, say hey, what a surprise to see you here - because it was a surprise, to run into a man he hadn't seen in over four years, in a city a thousand miles away from their home. But when Finn turned around, and raised his chin so he could look Ben in the face - Ben being at least a few inches taller than Finn - he was rendered speechless. He simply forgot how to speak.

Ben looked good - he looked _good_. All the things that had worried Finn the last time they'd spent time together - his gauntness, pallor, the bags under his eyes, his scraggly hair and unwashed clothes - all of these things were gone, and in there place was something healthy, something cared for. Ben was still wearing all black - some habits don't change, apparently - but his clothes were well-made, shiny leather shoes and well-cut trousers and his sweater, slightly tight across his chest and shoulders. He was not as skinny as he'd been in the park; he wasn't skinny at all. And his skin was glowing, still pale but clean, moisturized, exfoliated. The mole next to his nose looked positively delicious.

"You look good," Finn said in reply to Ben's basic greeting, and his face heated as he realized what exactly he'd said. But Ben didn't seem to mind, instead he looked Finn up and down and smirked.

"You look good too."

Finn's drink arrived, and Ben invited Finn to sit with him. He should have gone right back to the office but instead he sat with Ben, and they talked for ten minutes just to catch up. Ben had sobered up, had got a job with a friend of his dad's in the city, and was doing well. He congratulated Finn for graduating in the top of his class, and they both wondered at the coincidence that they'd end up working only a block away from each other in a city neither one of them had ever expected to live in before.

Finn had go to back to work, and so did Ben. They traded numbers at the table, and walked out of the coffeeshop together. On the sidewalk, Ben paused, took Finn's hand and pulled him towards the window, out of the stream of pedestrians walking up and down the sidewalk.

"How's the Tooka cat? I almost forgot to ask."

Finn smiled. "Tooka's good. She's getting old, but she's good. She lives with me here, in my apartment."

"That's great! I know it was hard for you, being apart from her, when you were in college."

"It was, but now we're together, I get to see her every day."

Ben blushed. "Sounds nice."

Finn felt himself blushing too. "It is nice," he whispered, taking a step closer. "You should come over and see her tonight."

"I should," Ben whispered back, and the two men leaned forward and pressed their lips together, just a peck, before they stepped apart again.

"We'll meet..."

"I'll text..."

They laughed, and Finn tried again.

"I get off at five. Meet me here then?"

"As soon after as I can. I'll text you if anything comes up."

They laughed again, and Finn watched as Ben danced down the street, looking over his shoulder at the corner to see if Finn was still watching - which he was. Once Ben was out of sight, Finn skipped across the street and into the cool dim of his building.

On his way up the elevator his phone dinged; it was a text from Ben.

It said: I_ can't wait to see Tooka cat again tonight. It's been too long._

Finn couldn't wait for Ben to see Tooka cat again, either.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm flowersofcarrot on Twitter, leofgyth on Tumblr and leoba on Pillowfort. Come say hi!


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